9800 pro too hot?

[Chebago]

Allright, I have a sapphire 9800pro and yesterday I put on an Arctic Cooling rev3 to keep it cool. Well, while playing Jedi Academy I noticed that it seems to be alot more choppy with all the settings on high then it ever was with just the stock heatsink and fan. I then turned on all 4 of my case fans to high instead of just 2 at medium but still left the vga cooler at the low setting and all the choppiness went away. My question is did I some how put the cooler on wrong? I used Arctic Silver 5 and it seemed to have good contact.

I bought the cooler to avoid having to turn on all my fans while gaming. Incedently, Jedi Knight is the first game I have had to turn on all my fans, every other game (Call of Duty, Hitman: Contracts, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow) all played fine with just 2 fans at medium for hours. But now I'm worried I put the cooler on wrong somehow.

my system:

Chieftec Dragon case
Antec 550 trupower
Asus A7n8x deluxe
Athlon xp 2600++
512 (2x256) Samsung pc2700 Ram
Sapphire 9800 pro


with all 4 fans going full, temps were about 49c for cpu and 18c for the case
with 2 fans going half(~7volts), the cpu was 60c and the case was 28c

oh, the cpu fan goes about ~1400rpm

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Chebago
18c for the case

wow, i would hate to see your ac bill. are you an eskimo or something?


as for the cooler, ya you probably have it on wrong as heat shouldn't be an issue at all.

 

[Chebago]

sorry, meant to say motherboard temperature, which I just checked again using asus probe, and it is 18c. I think I do have it on wrong so I'm going to break it down tomorrow and make sure everything is allright.

 

[crsgardner]

Considering I have a newly-built rig with the same card and a motherboard running at 50 degrees Celsius (damn new fan better get here from Newegg) I doubt it's the temperature. I've run into no visual issues with my card at that heat, but I'm still cooling the case down for safety and longevity reasons.

 

[jcwagers]

Have you tried turning the Arctic Cooling Silencer on high? I've heard that it isn't particularly loud even on the high setting. Then turn your case fans back to how you had them. If the choppiness goes away, you have your answer. If it's still choppy, you know that it isn't either setting on the Silencer.

jc

 

[Chebago]

Originally posted by: jcwagers
Have you tried turning the Arctic Cooling Silencer on high? I've heard that it isn't particularly loud even on the high setting. Then turn your case fans back to how you had them. If the choppiness goes away, you have your answer. If it's still choppy, you know that it isn't either setting on the Silencer.

jc

It runs a little longer before getting choppy on high then on low. I'm really starting to think that I put it on wrong or the heatsink isn't making good enough contact on the core because I would think that even on low it should run better than the stock. Tomorrow I guess I will pull it off and reattach tomorrow.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: jcwagers
Have you tried turning the Arctic Cooling Silencer on high? I've heard that it isn't particularly loud even on the high setting. Then turn your case fans back to how you had them. If the choppiness goes away, you have your answer. If it's still choppy, you know that it isn't either setting on the Silencer.

jc

It's too loud on high, bleh.

 

[Fern]

Hey Chebago, I just picked up a 9800 pro and I started looking in to extra cooling. I saw some posts where it's said the shim around the core keeps the the HS from making good contact. Since you've pulled your HS is off, is that true? Is the shim a problem for making good contact?

Thanks


EDIT: Mine's a BBA, don't know if that makes a diff though

 

[Chebago]

Originally posted by: Fern
Hey Chebago, I just picked up a 9800 pro and I started looking in to extra cooling. I saw some posts where it's said the shim around the core keeps the the HS from making good contact. Since you've pulled your HS is off, is that true? Is the shim a problem for making good contact?

Thanks


EDIT: Mine's a BBA, don't know if that makes a diff though

I'm actually going to pull it off and chack everything so I will let you know. I didn't even think to check for the shim the first time, but I read that also so I will definitely check and let you know.

 

[Chebago]

Originally posted by: Fern
Hey Chebago, I just picked up a 9800 pro and I started looking in to extra cooling. I saw some posts where it's said the shim around the core keeps the the HS from making good contact. Since you've pulled your HS is off, is that true? Is the shim a problem for making good contact?

Thanks


EDIT: Mine's a BBA, don't know if that makes a diff though

actually I think that might have been the problem, I thought about taking the shim off, but it was really stuck on there and I didn't want to somehow hurt the GPU trying to force it off. Anyway, I decided to sand down the heatsink on the two sides that connected with the shim and it seems to make good contact after, cleaned off all the Artic Silver 5, using acetone and DVD pro wipes and then reapplied using a razorblade.

I took pictures using my camera so if you do go an external cooling solution and want to see what I did, I would be more than happy to put them on my site. I will do some good gaming and testing tonight to make sure if it is good, but it seems to be doing really well.

 

[Chebago]

just played some Halo, which I'm kinda depressed I can't play with full settings, even at 1024x768 without some noticeable slowdown, I can't decide if it was better with my other 2 fans going or not, I'm going to let it cool down and start again with only the 2 fans running. We'll see how it goes.

I know it can't be that the heatsink isn't on right, because it is as good as it is going to get.

 

[howdyduty]

If increased case cooling helped, it could be just that...case cooling. You might try an inexpensive slot fan and set it next to your video card.